


Keepsakes

by Nochi



Category: Psychonauts
Genre: Gen, limb injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:35:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1389625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nochi/pseuds/Nochi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the little things we hold on to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keepsakes

Razputin was six.

"Her name is Antonia," his father told him the night before she arrived. "The child of your mother's sister. Your aunt died when she was young and her father's taken ill. She'll be living with us now. She's not used to circus life, Razputin. Be nice."

Antonia was thirteen, with long, dark hair and heavy-lidded eyes that were as green as Razputin's. Her voice held a thick Russian accent – when she spoke at all, that is. Razputin's father often shook his head as he walked past her, curled into a chair with her hair in her eyes, watching the goings-on with little interest.

And then she found the tightrope.

Though she insisted she'd never walked a rope before in her life, she was completely at ease at the dizzying heights, spinning and jumping and balancing with the grace of an experienced performer. She practiced with Razputin after the show was over, the two of them swinging from the line, laughing together.

And then she fell.

Her leg was snapped in three places. She was sweating and breathing shallowly when she told Razputin to get his father, _hurry, Razputin, God, it hurts_... The doctor said the cast would be on for at _least_ six weeks. No more performances for Antonia.

Elizabeth the Trapeze Artist had broken her leg before (twice, in fact), and understood the boredom involved in waiting for it to heal. So she tried to help Antonia, tried to keep her mind engaged even if her body couldn't move around. She showed her some small tapestries she had woven, circling patterns of yarn, and showed her how to make her own.

Antonia took to this immediately, and had finished three before the doctor came back to check on her leg. When Razputin's father asked just what in the hell she was going to do with them, she shyly offered to sell them, possibly make a dent in the medical costs. Razputin's father just grunted and walked off.

Her shop was outside the tent, just to the right of the entrance, and the small tapestries sold rather well. Except for one, the first one she'd made, a lopsided and mismatched spiral.

"Why can't you sell that one?" Razputin asked as he sat in the dark with her, after the show.

"Who'd buy it, Tiny? It is a practice piece, like a safety net when you walk the rope for the first time."

"But, Antonia, you didn't use a net the first time you walked." She just smiled down at him.

"And that is what makes this so much _better._ "

The tiny, lopsided tapestry didn't quite fit into Razputin's bag when he ran away that one night, long ago. It did, however, fit quite nicely on the wall behind his desk when the agency finally decided he needed an office. Sasha lifted an eyebrow when he first saw it, and started to comment, but fell silent at the look on Razputin's face.

 _It's a keepsake_ , was all he'd say.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first and only Psychonauts fic I ever wrote. It was originally going to be a series focusing on the little things the Psychonauts kept with them (I think Milla had a bracelet one of the orphanage kids made her?) and maybe I'll go back to it eventually. Not counting on it, though.


End file.
